Hampshire Astronomical Group

Astronomical Events for February 2012

Moon

2 Feb - The waxing gibbous Moon lies 5° north-east from Aldebaran.

9/10 Feb - The 93% lit Moon can be found around 10% to the south of Mars, which can still be seen despite the brightness of the Moon.

12 Feb - 03:30 UT - Waxing gibbous Moon can be found in the south.  Just to the east of the Moon can be found Spica (mag. +1.0), and the next object along, still going east, is Saturn (mag. +0.6).

15 Feb - 05:00 UT - The waning crescent Moon lies to the north of the star Dschubba (Delta Scorpii) which is mag. +2.3.

17 Feb - 05:30 UT - The waning crescent Moon lies a little to the north of M20, the Trifid Nebula, and will occult the northern part of the nebula.

17 Feb - 06:00 UT - The Moon occults M21.

22 Feb - Just after sunset look out for a 0.7% lit waxing crescent Moon which can be found approximately 6.5% to the right of Mercury.

26 Feb - 20:00 UT - The Moon lies close to Venus and Jupiter.

28 Feb - 22:00 UT - The Moon can be found 5° southwest of the Pleiades.

Comet

3 Feb - Look for Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd which will be passing close to M92 which can be found in Hercules.  M92 is mag. +6.4 whilst the comet is mag. +7.

Planets

7 Feb - Venus (mag. -4.0) is close to Uranus (mag. +5.9).  There is a 3.5° separation between them tonight, but on the 9th this will be 0.5°.  See page 50 of the BBC Sky at Night magazine for more details.

8 Feb - 19:50 UT - Europa and Ganymede can be found flanking Jupiter.  Europa's shadow can be seen on Jupiter as it transits.

27 Feb - Using a telescope, tonight is a good opportunity to observe Mars, and if the conditions are favourable it should be possible to see Syrtis Major, which is the 'V'-shaped dark feature.

Misc

13 Feb - 23:00 UT - M44 (the Beehive cluster) reaches its highest point today.  With the Moon below the horizon its a good opportunity to observe this cluster using binoculars or a telescope with a low-power eyepiece.

19 Feb - The Moon doesn't rise until just before dawn, so tonight is a good night for deep-sky observing.

Announcement posted by : Website Team

Events in the South of England

8th February - Living in the Sun's atmosphere

Dr Lucie Green (Mullard Space Science Laboratory)

The cafe will be selling a limited selection of alcoholic drinks before this lecture.

Lecture: The intense light emitted by the yellow, seemingly placid, disk of the Sun hides the reality that the Sun is a violent and active star. This violent side is well seen by telescopes that are put above the Earth's atmosphere can take images of the Sun in ultraviolet and X- ray radiation. This talk will show how space telescopes have revealed the true nature of the Sun since the dawn of the space age in the 1950's, and in particular what we have learnt about eruptions from the Sun called coronal mass ejections.

Lucie Green is a solar researcher based at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL's Department of Space and Climate Physics. She studys activity in the immense magnetic fields in the Sun's atmosphere. These sporadically erupt to form a coronal mass ejection.

She take a strong interest in science education and public engagement, and is a member of the Royal Society's Education Committee and was on their State of the Nation reports Working Group during 2007-2009. UCL has been awarded Beacon for Public Engagement with Science status and Lucie sits on UCL's Steering Committee for this project. She runs MSSL's public engagement programme and is the 2009 recipient of the Kohn Award for excellence in public engagement with science. She also works in TV and radio, writes science articles and give talks about the UK's current research in solar system science.

Announcement posted by : Website Team